Paperback Row

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By Joumana Khatib

March 23, 2017

Six new paperbacks to check out this week.

RIGHTFUL HERITAGE: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America, by Douglas Brinkley. (Harper Perennial, $19.99.) While Roosevelt is most often associated with saving the economy, restructuring the social contract and waging war, he was also greatly concerned with the welfare of the country’s natural resources. Brinkley outlines how the president intentionally interwove economic and environmental interests, often to a mixed effect.

NOT ALL BASTARDS ARE FROM VIENNA,by Andrea Molesini. Translated by Antony Shugaar and Patrick Creagh. (Grove, $16.) Set in Italy during World War I, Molesini’s novel follows the residents of German-requisitioned Villa Spada, in a small town north of Venice. Our reviewer, Katherine A. Powers, called the novel “wonderfully alive — often terribly so — as a wartime adventure and story of youth arriving at manhood.”

DOUBLE CUP LOVE: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China, by Eddie Huang. (Spiegel & Grau, $17.) In his earlier memoir, “Fresh Off the Boat,” Huang, a chef, drew parallels between African-American and Chinese culture. “Double Cup Love” takes place largely in mainland China as Huang researches cuisine and grapples with his plans to propose to his white American girlfriend, raising questions about identity and authenticity.

THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF LOVE, by Elizabeth J. Church. (Algonquin, $15.95.) In the early 1940s, Meridian Wallace is an eager biology student, but when she falls in love with a professor 20 years her senior, she sets aside her aspirations, living in Los Alamos while her husband works on the bomb. Years later, she is trying to keep up her scientific ambition by studying a community of crows. But when she encounters a second passion — a Vietnam War veteran working as a geologist — she finds an opportunity to make a new set of choices.

STRANGE GODS: A Secular History of Conversion, by Susan Jacoby. (Vintage, $17.) Over half of Americans will switch religions as adults, according to Jacoby. Though many prevailing conversion accounts center on a spiritual awakening or reckoning, she investigates the material reasons for change — among them a desire to improve one’s socioeconomic standing or to abandon a ruinous path in a quest for self-preservation.

I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU, by Theresa Rebeck. (Putnam, $16.) Fate brings together and drives apart two former high school sweethearts in the Midwest: Alison is pursuing an acting career in New York, while Kyle, a married pediatrician, settles into suburban life. The novel “strikes a buzzworthy balance between down-home charm and Hollywood glitter,” Elisabeth Egan said in the Book Review.